Monday, August 27, 2018

The Happytime Murders



Runtime: 91 minutes

Directed by: Brian Henson

Starring: Plenty of actors that are probably embarrassed to be in this

From: STX
  
Yeah, stick with the vulgar puppet movie done by Peter Jackson instead: 

This is just like Meet the Feebles... if Meet the Feebles was terrible and aggravating instead of funny.

For a long while I was concerned this movie wouldn't be entertaining; honestly, I just avoid Melissa McCarthy movies as from reviews and clips I've seen, most are just comedies I do not find pleasant to watch, let alone tickle my funny bone. That is why I saw this at a drive-in (yes, some of those still exist) in a double bill with something that was even worse-that review will appear about 24 hours from now-as after all, a decent number of film fans don't like Meet the Feebles at all and yet it's hilarious to me.

Unfortunately, while Feebles had fun characters-even the ones that do terrible things-and plenty of amusing one-liners among all the debauchery and graphic acts that those puppets did, this was tame in comparison and much of the R-rated material was cursing; everyone curses and as that alone usually don't impress me much, I found it tiresome. McCarthy was loud and obnoxious, meaning “How I imagine she is in every role” and the character quickly became tiresome also. Ultimately, I did not care too much about the human cop and her ex-partner turned PI having to team up again to try and solve who is killing those that were part of the 90's puppet TV show The Happytime Gang.

I've mentioned before in previous reviews how my comedy tastes are not always normal compared to the norm and also how many genre efforts from the 21st century just don't interest me much. While there were a few chuckles, most of the time I was annoyed by the cop and PI constantly arguing and cursing at each other, along with the trite neo-noir story that just wasn't all that interesting and I was never given a reason to care about it either. I needed a lot more than just a puppet ejaculating a bunch of silly string to make the experience seem worthwhile.

It's a shame, as the idea of Jim Henson's son doing a vulgar R-rated picture with puppets should have been a blast, and there should have been many creative moments. Instead, I was usually irritated by how the premise of a neo-noir movie that happens to feature puppets as second class citizens (I imagine those that have seen this and Bright will note some similarities, and I say that as someone who has only read reviews of Bright, and THERE is a movie you want to be reminded of) was wasted here and instead we saw idiotic characters in a story that wasn't engaging at all. The motion picture that this will always be compared to is much more worthy of viewing, as it's much better all around and actually feels transgressive when you examine them both.

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